


Deceptions

by narsus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Dark, Depression, Incest, M/M, Rape, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surface veneers are hardly ever what they seem, some more so than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deceptions

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat, and obviously in the genesis of it all, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

By about six o’clock Sherlock is bored. John has gone out, allegedly to meet up with work colleagues for a ‘team drink’. Sherlock knows otherwise. John has only gone along due to the inevitable presence of an attractive, and now apparently single, co-worker at said function. He’d dressed for the occasion with far more care than usual, and had taken extra time to see to his personal hygiene and grooming. Which suggest, to Sherlock, that John presumes that he’s in with a chance. It’s not a complicated equation, regardless of outcome, and Sherlock is thoroughly bored with mulling over it. There is nothing to do in the flat. He doesn’t have the necessary focus to attend to his experiments, doesn’t have the care to tidy up the kitchen and, most certainly, doesn’t have the energy to do anything that requires he do much more than lie on the couch. There are no more cases to deal with, not after the last, tedious one finished a week ago, and Sherlock suspects that Lestrade has actually just gone on holiday. He hasn’t gone far, just down to Dorset for a few days, but it’s far enough. Sherlock knows from experience that calling Lestrade while he’s on leave won’t do much good, it won’t make any new cases magically appear and Lestrade will just ignore him anyway.

“What do you do in Dorset then?” He’d snapped once.  
“Paint.”  
“Liar.”  
“Deduce it then.” Lestrade had shrugged as if he didn’t care either way.  
“You spend hours walking a shingle beach alone. You like to watch the mist rolling off the hills at sunrise and look down the coastline without being able to see a single other soul.”  
“Got it in one.”  
“Why?”  
Lestrade has smiled then, and had simply said his goodbyes.

Lestrade doesn’t usually spend the entirety of his leave walking down windswept beaches, and tends to come back after a few days. Still, even if he has returned to London, he won’t respond to any provocation on Sherlock’s part, until he chooses to. Sherlock had once attempted to force his hand and had spent the night in a police cell for his trouble. Lestrade had sauntered by in the morning to pick him up, and had taken him to lunch at Fortnum’s. Lestrade had chosen the Fountain restaurant, in opposed to the St James’ one which Sherlock is more familiar with.

“Mycroft always goes to-“  
“I know, but I’m buying you lunch so I get to pick.”  
“Why do _you_ get to pick?”  
“We’re not on a date, Sherlock. I’m apologising.”  
“For what? You haven’t committed any boring homicides.”  
“Quiet, will you.”  
“What are you apologising for then?”  
Lestrade had looked sheepish. “For leaving you in the cells overnight.”  
“Oh, _that_.” Which had been familiar territory.  
“Now what are you grinning about?”  
“I was just thinking, that if Mycroft ever gets himself horribly murdered, in a very interesting fashion that will keep a case running for months of course-“  
“Of course.”  
“Then I’ll let you be my new elder brother.”

Without Lestrade or John to entertain him, Sherlock is prepared to resort to dire measures. Settling himself in front of the TV with a cup of coffee, it takes him a little while to find a channel that he can be bothered watching, while manipulating the remote with his toes. He could pick the thing up from the floor but that would involve leaning forwards, off the couch, and he just can’t be bothered to. The coffee, with one sugar and milk, has relaxed him in that strange way that milky coffee always does. It’s enough to suggest that he might have a mild case of ADHD, to go with his propensity towards depression. It can only be a mild case, if it is one at all, if he can control it with the occasional milky coffee, rather than requiring a prescription. The box of Sertraline sitting on his bedside table is testament to the severity of his depressive moods after all. That, and the ashtray that now resides there permanently, is, in fact, probably making his bedside table look much like his mother’s these days. He remembers her black moods from his childhood, her cold expression, her demands that Mycroft be ‘perfect’. In retrospect, Sherlock acknowledges that Mycroft suffered just as much from her unreasonable demands of him, as Sherlock himself did, from her neglect. Mycroft had pushed himself to succeed far beyond everybody’s expectations save hers: Sherlock had responded by deliberately failing at conformity. It’s therefore a little strange to marry up the past and present images in his head. His past memories of his mother are always of her in the pre-dawn, framed by the tall dining room windows, cigarette raised to her lips, sharp features indistinct in the scant light, dressed in a dark trouser suit, thin lips turned down in an expression of bitter discontent. She’d been terrifying back then, and he’d secretly been glad that she hadn’t seemed to care that he existed. The last time he’d seen her, more recently, she’d been curled up in an armchair, smoking a thin pipe, wearing a long, shapeless dress of all things, and smiling gently at Mycroft’s talk of workplace antics. Those dark curls had been greying and she’d ruffled his hair as he’d sat at her feet. When he’d leaned back into her touch it had been all the acknowledgement of her apology that was needed.

Time, and a rather disastrous mishap with his medication, has taught Sherlock the difference between the utter hopelessness of depression and occasions like this, when his boredom is a perfectly reasonable response to matters. He’s tired when it comes down to it, too drained to do much of anything but he’s still coherent enough to require some stimulation. Unfortunately, he can’t stomach any of that “Airline” reality TV program that’s showing at the moment, or he’ll end up yelling at the screen. The last time he’d tried watching it, because it always seems to be on, he’d ended up screaming at the TV about wing balancing and safety precautions. Similarly, he’s tried watching “Inspector Morse” because John seems to be overtly fond of it, and had just ended up confused. Morse, as a rule, seems to chase women, jump to conclusions and drink too much, but he does have an extraordinary memory when it comes to piecing together the minute details that are required to correct his mistakes. James Kavanagh would make the better detective really, though John seems to enjoy both series equally. It’s enough to convince Sherlock that John simply fancies John Thaw. None of which solves the problem of what to watch now. Sherlock has watched an hour long documentary about Kimora Lee before, is partial to “What Not To Wear” and finds “Grand Designs” tolerable, which means that, as the programming moves into its evening schedule, most of what he’d like to watch, peters out. He’s left with news programs, ghastly new revisions of classic older shows and a handful of films.

It’s the stylised London skyline, featuring St Paul’s, that finally catches his eye, and for a while he actually manages to entertain himself by sneering at various aspects as the film unfolds. In fact, he manages to spend a good few minutes at least muttering that one of the characters is awfully clean for an East End whore of the era and another objecting to the very possibility of four pounds being an achievable sum for a night’s work in the circumstances. Unfortunately, the plot is fairly straightforward, and unsubtle about attempting to make the viewer suspect what will invariably turn out to be an innocent character. It’s not dull enough for Sherlock to attempt another channel, since this is probably the best of a bad bunch, but it’s simply not holding his attention too well. He gets up to make himself another coffee and ponders the situation. He will go back to watching that film of course, because that’s about the limit of the effort he’s prepared to put into anything right now, but it’s not an ideal situation. There has to be something else, not too strenuous or requiring too much focus on his part, that he can do to enhance proceedings. The most obvious choice is alcohol but there’s none to be had. He finished the last bottle of Amaretto a month ago and hasn’t bothered to replace it. Likewise, he’s polished off John’s last bottle of that alcoholic ginger beer yesterday, much to John’s annoyance. At which point he recalls the mostly untouched bottle of Swiss absinth gathering dust in a cupboard. It’s one of Mycroft’s deliberately annoying presents, because Sherlock doesn’t like really like absinth and thinks that this one, in particular, tastes like mouthwash. There’s even a proper glass and spoon to go with it, which adds to the irritation. Nevertheless, Sherlock dutifully arranges things suitably, though he’s fairly certain that casually sloshing water over the sugar cube isn’t the way one’s meant to do things. The resulting mixture still tastes far too much like mouthwash for his liking, so he adds a second sugar cube to the glass, which doesn’t improve matters all that much anyway.

Back on the couch, absinth glass in hand, Sherlock takes a few experimental sips of the mixture, before deciding he’ll take a large swallow, as if it were actually medicine, to see if that helps matters along. It doesn’t. Now he’s just left with a foul taste in his mouth, a dull film in front of him and the urge to do something else to take the edge off the tedium. The answer in the end is obvious. He does, after all, keep a supply to hand, just in case. Leaving the TV on, he heads to his room, the most obvious place to keep anything secretly or at least, discreetly, if secrecy can’t be had. Not that there’s too much need for that in this day and age. While crime is still crime, there are levels of acceptability in society, and white collar drug use isn’t terribly uncommon. Use of certain drugs is, of course, unfashionable but, even though cocaine is far more widely available these days, it still has a place among the professional classes. Sherlock always likes to keep at least two grams to hand, just in case. He doesn’t keep both little plastic bags together of course and only one is in a fairly obvious hiding place. The current, already opened gram, is at the back of his sock draw, shoved underneath far too many pairs of rolled socks. The little bag is folded in half, inside a lipstick case covered in blue, patterned, Chinese silk. It’s hardly a sensible hiding place but that isn’t the point. Sherlock merely keeps it out of sight for the sake of sensibility. There’s a touch of the theatrical to it of course, but the little case always feels suitably solid in his hand, when he digs it out from the back of the draw. Besides, were it ever discovered, the method he’s used to hide it, speaks of a casual user, rather that someone who needs to use more elaborate means, to secure a much larger quality on a regular basis.

Cocaine retrieved, the next step is to push papers, news clippings, and various other odds and ends, aside, to clear a space on the smooth wooden surface of his desk. After that he needs flat plastic of some kind, to use to grind down the powder. Of course credit cards are the usual form but Sherlock has an old university identification card for exams and a book voucher from Borders that work just as well. Both are flat plastic, shaped just like credit cards but without the raised numbering, and the book voucher is just that little bit more flexible. He takes a moment to consider his next course of action. He could simply scoop some of the fine powder out of the bag with the tip of one card, but even if he’s going to attempt a corner, he really ought to grind the powder down first because it’s started to form little clumps in the bag. Then, he reasons that the slightly larger clumps shouldn’t make any difference, so proceeds to scoop out far less than he’d aimed for, with difficulty, and just lift it to a nostril and inhale. There isn’t nearly enough to do much of anything for him so he resorts to the old method of shaking some of the bag onto the table and busies himself with making sure that the grains are reasonably ground down instead. He manages to make a bit of a mess of it when he scrapes the edges of the cards together, to get the last bits of powder off, and finally concedes to simply running his tongue along the edges to take off any residue. The final result is a rather thick, but reasonably short, line, of heaped white powder, which should do the job nicely in Sherlock’s estimation. He’s not intending to take more than one line after all. If he were, he’d have cut up one of the left over drinking straws in the kitchen, rather than looking for something to roll into a tube, like the Marks & Spencer’s receipt that he’s currently holding. The receipt is of far thinner paper than a bank note but it will do and he can’t be bothered to look for anything else, just for a single use. Two sharp inhales is all it takes: half the line with one side, half with the other. Sherlock sniffs for several moments afterwards, trying to make sure that none of the powder goes to waste. He cleans up in a haphazard fashion, tucking the plastic cards between some books on a shelf, double checking that he’s sealed the bag up again, before putting it back into the little case that he clips closed and shoves as far back in his sock draw as he can reach. He pushes at the piles of papers on his desk so that they cover the cleared space once again and unfurls the receipt, which he adds to the collection stored in a plastic sleeve, that Mycroft will have collected at the end of the month to update Sherlock’s accounts. Sherlock doesn’t actually know if Mycroft does his accounts personally or delegates it to somebody else. Knowing Mycroft it’s likely to be the former.

Sherlock lights a cigarette. The first thing he always wants to do after taking cocaine is smoke. He’s not entirely sure why that is. For a moment too, he considers digging through some of his old files, examining the details of a few cases in particular, because his mind is sharp now, focused and perfectly, precisely calm. Instead, he heads back into the living room and deposits himself on the couch. He takes his time finishing his cigarette in front of the TV, and then, in a fit of pique, drops the remainder into what’s left of his glass of absinth. Cocaine has a tendency to instil the user with a sense of confidence, over-confidence even. It speeds up the synapses and allows for intent focus. It’s the sort of drug that Sherlock’s certain he could just go on using indefinitely, for the sake of the advantages it would give him. On the other hand, he’s quite fond of his nasal septum, which is one of the reasons that he doesn’t actually use it all that often. Physiologically, his body probably wouldn’t be able to handle the amounts of cocaine that Mycroft’s capable of anyway and the come-down is always a little disconcerting. It happens almost without warning: one minute he’s focused, precise in his perception, capable of a thousand chains of logical reasoning, and the next, he’s slumped back against the couch, incapable of following a single thread of thought and finding the bland film in front of him far too incomprehensible to concentrate on. He manages to turn off the TV with a toe and then falls backwards completely, eyes closed, breathing through parted lips, vaguely aware that John will find him like this in the morning and will, most likely, disapprove.

When awareness comes to him, it’s to the sensation of being carried, like a sack of potatoes, thrown over someone’s shoulder. It’s disorientating, especially in his current state, but not, now he recognises the cologne, worthy of any panic on his part. Mycroft is deceptively strong after all. The urge to say something scathing is quite weak at the moment so he hangs there, limply, as Mycroft carries him down the hall to his bedroom. When he’s tumbled down onto the bed it comes as a surprise and Sherlock realises that he must have fallen asleep again. It’s been a while since he’s taken any cocaine but even that shouldn’t account for his level of exhaustion. He doesn’t have the energy to keep his eyes open, let alone sit up or give any kind of commentary on proceedings. He’s dragged up the bed so that his head rests on the pillows, and at first he supposes that Mycroft might just leave him there. Certainly, Mycroft stills, as if considering something, then comes the sound of the door locking and an umbrella propped up against the side of the desk. It’s arrogance on Mycroft’s part to have deliberately brought his umbrella with him as he’d carried Sherlock’s limp weight down the hall. The next thing that Sherlock notices is that Mycroft seems to be breathing a little more rapidly than normal, which, considering a variety of other factors ought to mean something to Sherlock’s muddled brain. If he were clear-headed he’d recognise it at once but right now he is in no state to do anything buy lie still, eyes closed, listening to the sounds around him. He’s not surprised when the mattress dips under Mycroft’s weight, though he’d expected Mycroft to sit beside him rather than deposit himself further down. In fact, it appears that Mycroft might well be kneeling on the bed rather than sitting at all. The sensation of cool air against his legs, as his pyjama bottoms are pulled down, distracts him from wondering why Mycroft isn’t sitting down. Steady hands push his legs apart, sliding over his skin slowly, as if savouring it. Sherlock manages to raise a hand and clutch weakly at Mycroft’s shoulder, briefly, before unconsciousness takes him again. He’s out cold before his hand hits the covers.

Sherlock wakes to the sound of a scuffle, apparently on the landing just outside his door. He’s still so weak that remaining conscious is difficult, but he manages to lift his head slightly and force open his eyes for long enough to see Lestrade holding back a furious John, so that Mycroft can safely make his exit. Mycroft actually leans in close to say something, softly, into John’s ear as he departs. Sherlock’s head falls back against the pillow, eyes fluttering closed. He hears the front door close, hears the rasping of fabric and harsh words as Lestrade finally lets John go. Lestrade’s footsteps fade and the front door closes a second time before John seems to get himself in order. Sherlock can hear John forcibly calming himself down with deep, steadying breaths. John’s weight on the bed comes as a surprise, as does the hand on Sherlock’s knee, but then comes the realisation that John is simply going to check Sherlock over for injuries. John’s hands are careful and reassuring, something for which Sherlock is grateful, even if he’s incapable of stringing the through together coherently at the moment. It’s enough to make him fight the urge to slip back into unconsciousness, regardless of how overwhelming. He’s struggling to force his eyes open again, to give some slight sign of acknowledgement, when something shifts. John’s hands are as firm as Mycroft’s, though, perhaps, John’s grip is a little harder, and those hands linger where they ought not to by all medical prescription. John’s weight shifts on the bed, the tone of his breathing changing, distinctively. At which point Sherlock gives up the fight to remain conscious. It doesn’t matter now anyway, and, as always, he will of course have forgotten everything by the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> The stretch of Dorset coastline that Lestrade visits may well be Hengistbury Head.  
> Sertaline is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor used in the treatment of major depression.  
> The thin pipe Sherlock’s mother smokes would be a Japanese kiseru.  
> The film mentioned is “From Hell.”


End file.
